Can Brexit Be Reset? Keir Starmer and the EU

Federal Trust Chair John Stevens argues that Sir Keir Starmer will find it difficult to secure any meaningful "reset" in relations between the EU and UK. Starmer is, according to John Stevens, excessively concerned with appeasing the anti-European element of traditional Labour voters. He should confront rather than try appease such sentiments.
SPEAKERS
Brendan Donnelly is the Director of the Federal Trust and a former Conservative MEP.
John Stevens is the Chair of the Federal Trust and an analyst and commentator on economic affairs.
ABOUT THE FEDERAL TRUST
The Federal Trust is a research institute studying regional, national, European and global levels of government. It has always had a particular interest in the European Union and Britain’s place in it. The Federal Trust has no allegiance to any political party. It is registered as a charity for the purposes of education and research.
Website: fedtrust.co.uk/
X: x.com/fedtrust
Donate: www.paypal.com...
Support our work:
/ federaltrust
#brexit #rejoineu #youthmobilityscheme #keirstarmer #labourparty
Image copyright information:
Prime Minister Keir Starmer attends UNGA: www.flickr.com...
25/09/2024. New York, United States. Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks with Ursula Von der Leyen, president of the European Commissionas they attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Picture by Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing Street. Licence: creativecommon...
Background removed and cropped by Federal Trust.
Picture of Emmanuel Macron:
audiovisual.ec...
Copyright: European Union, 2023. Photographer: Dati Bendo
Background removed and cropped by Federal Trust.
Picture of Olaf Scholz:
audiovisual.ec...
Copyright: European Union, 2023. Photographer: Christophe Licoppe

[@maartenaalsmeer]

Can Brexit be 'reset'? No. Can the UK apply for another EU membership? Sure! Meet the criteria first and then hope there won't be any vetoes when applying. Good luck!

[@lloydbelle3406]

We still hold a big bag of anti-EU rhetoric. We would get vetoed and we would deserve it. First thing first - we need to drop the baggage!

[@Buckets1000]

@@maartenaalsmeer UK gov. once sat in great strong Seat of influence at the table in *EU.HQ.* & created, wrote, approved recommended signed up to many EU Laws while there. But UK Gov. displayed hatred for the EU & the Brexit campaign was based on numerous LIES. _The EU won't even look at an application for EU membership from_ *BREXSHITLAND ;-:"💩;':-;*

[@dub604]

The EU hold all the cards and until the UK undertakes very serious root level reform there will be no reset. Britain has a lot of work to do before it will be attractive to Brussels. Hubris, arrogance and the fantasy of British exceptionalism got us into this mess, it won't get us out of it.. that will require humility, introspection and honesty. I don't expect to see the UK back in the EU within the next 20 years, it will likely take that long for British people to understand their place in the world.

[@brendandonnelly1853]

The strange thing is that in the 1970s and 1980s British public opinion seemed to be moving in a more realistic direction about Europe. The legacy of Thatcherism and the poisonous Eurosceptic press of the early 1990s then stood everything on its head. We are still bearing the consequences of this U-turn.

[@dub604]

@@brendandonnelly1853 True. 😥

[@CollieJenn]

Agreed. Hope you turn your ship around. ie

[@dub604]

@@CollieJenn 👍

[@keacoq]

I think John Stevens is onto it. Starmer is doing what the Conservatives did, to appease the Brexiters rather than face the reality. At least the Conservatives have a faction that wants Brexit for their own partisan advantage. But Labour's pro-Brexit suppporters seem to be there out of ignorance or fear or years of influence by the right-wing media. Starmer needs to be helping them understand that Brexit is doing serious harm to the UK as a whole, and that only the very wealthy stand to gain anything from it, mostly by suppressing living standards of Labout voters. Trying to appease Labour anit-EU sentiment is a hiding to nothing. Once reality dawns, Starmer the appeaser will be toast.

[@brendandonnelly1853]

If Starmer came to believe that his pro-Brexit stance was doing him electoral harm he might well change his tune quite rapidly.

[@brendandonnelly1853]

I was 17:04 encouraged when Starmer said we would not rejoin the EU in his lifetime. It seemed to me the perfect candidate to end up in 😅a compilation of “things I wish I had never said.”😮

[@genghisthegreat2034]

Sir Keir Starmer is deeply disappointing in his short Premiership. You're right that " reset " is hyperbolic for the thin substance he's offered so far. No serious long term strategy for economic growth in the UK can shoulder its way past impediments to youth exchange for education, research, marketing, the ordinary human contacts on which business relationships are seeded and grow. Trade needs to be satisfying and enabling, as well as profitable. Writing from abroad, the FPTP system is actually distorting the political centre of gravity now. Even a landslide is fragile, whereas under PR, the likes of Reform and the Tories would have to temper their extremities, by the knowledge they might actually have to serve in a stable Coalition.

[@andrewblewett2300]

Good to see you two back - helpful discussion +++. My sense is that what we have in the UK is a sort of moral cowardice over Europe. Very few of us can recall anything so toxic and paralysing, and so harmful to the democratic process in the UK as the referendum and its aftermath. I think Starmer has decided that we simply don’t have the collective energy to confront the complex forces of darkness that led to our exit all over again. Which would require a serious effort of leadership. I may yet leave the Labour Party over Erasmus +, having benefited immensely from a year in France as a young adult (actually pre-Erasmus) I find the willingness to block others from the same life changing and life enhancing benefits quite cynical and worse than annoying. To move from People’s Vote to anti-Erasmus is quite bizarre. Makes no real sense at all. It’s all a bit discouraging except for the fact that we are losing economic momentum and events in Europe and elsewhere will make a passive attitude unfeasible in the medium term. I long to see a senior MP become the Rejoin equivalent of Farage with a permanent eloquent slot on mainstream media - banging on about it. Otherwise who can blame ordinary voters from viewing it as a dead duck issue.

[@brendandonnelly1853]

Despite the lack of political leadership opinion polls show increasing opposition to Brexit in the UK. That would not be so if the electorate really saw Brexit as a dead duck issue.

[@Lucid.dreamer]

​@@brendandonnelly1853 Ummm... I think you're pinning your hopes on those "polls". You do know they are worthless. The real "poll" is the ballot box. I think we can tell that there is *no appetite at all* for EU membership I in the UK. That's why major party will go near it.

[@Lucid.dreamer]

​@@brendandonnelly1853It's actually more like a dead parrot.

[@michaelwilliams3232]

@@Lucid.dreamer Always helpful to have an expert on hand.

[@Lucid.dreamer]

It's very simple. The UK is nowhere near meeting the Copenhagen criteria. And it's not going to be for many decades. So forget it. Starmer is correct. But actually the UK is never going to seek EU membership. You people are just deluded.

[@michaelwilliams3232]

Always helpful to have an expert on hand.

[@Arckitekt]

Start rejoining these programs Erasmus, YM, Musicians, Phytosanitary, Vets, Horizon...get on with it

[@Lucid.dreamer]

No. Thanks, but no, thanks.

[@danielcarr7090]

We currently have a situation where nearly all the Remainers are still actively against Brexit- they haven't warmed to it at all- and the Leavers aren't happy either, cos they are now angry and frustrated that their blessed Brexit is isn't anywhere near as good as they hoped it would be: Immigration has gone up not down, the country is poorer by 100 billion a year and our trade deals has been woeful. This means that almost everyone in the UK is royally fed up. That's hardly a ringing endorsement of Brexit. But undoing this will be a long slog, there are no quick routes back into the EU. I'm afraid I think we will be out of the EU for as long as we were in it.

[@Buckets1000]

The word 'Remainers' in context of BREXIT is obsolete as all citizens of *BREXSHITLAND* became *BREXSHITSTERS :-;':"💩;-:* on 31.01.2020.

[@Buckets1000]

☝️💩👉The word remainer in the context of BREXIT is obsolete. All UK citizens left the *EU Bloc Alliance* on 31.01.2020 when the UK became BREXSHITLAND.

[@danielcarr7090]

@@Buckets1000 Well, we need words to communicate and Remainer is still widely used. I could have said Re-joiner, or Brexit-hater, or whatever, but basically my point is that those who voted to stay in the EU haven't changed their minds about the fact that Brexit was and is a mistake.

[@Buckets1000]

@@danielcarr7090 *YES, ☝️👀👉 I agree,* I thought I was being Shadow Banned on this channel & was testing to see if my comments were 🫥 invisible 🫥

[@Lucid.dreamer]

You're fooling yourself. Leave voters and supporters have no intention of allowing the UK to be dragged into the EU. Forget it. And if you're pinning your hopes on those "polls" 🙄, don't waste your time. They are worthless and meaningless.